With what’s left of my face after you
have finished with it, your sun
melted it, your shocks and switches
scoured and scarified it, your challenges
chopped and chiselled it, your licks and lays
licked and lavaged it,
ravaged it with your un
speak
able ways
With whatever skin I still have,
whatever still works in my eyes,
whatever screams I have left,
with hands turning to stone,
with all my remaining teeth,
with spider veins in my cheeks
and enough flesh for one kiss
in the thin ghosts of my lips
I will finally speak your name.
Throw off all fakery and surgery,
present your name in the city,
howl it in what’s left of the country,
throw it all over the Net.
With every note left in my mouth.
When you can see all of me,
when you can hear all of me,
when all the red things, sad things,
good and bad things inside me
no longer divide me from you
I will finally, at last, in ecstasy speak
your name, your name, your name, your un
speak
able name.
(First published in The Recessive Type)